


Happy Birthday, Lyr!

by Sphye



Category: Eldemore, The Task Force - Fandom
Genre: Gen, because procrastination, cjr09, the task force - Freeform, two days to write two days to edit and a month and a half inbetween
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-15
Updated: 2018-05-15
Packaged: 2019-05-07 05:10:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14663985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sphye/pseuds/Sphye
Summary: Lyric's birthday marks the start of a week-long contest of pranks and mischief. He's the king of this holiday, and he's ready to evade any and all attempts to dethrone him.Anyyyy time now.





	Happy Birthday, Lyr!

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cjr09](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cjr09/gifts).



Lyric had learned to be a light sleeper. Sometimes it was necessary to be up at a moment’s notice; Ready to wake whether intended to be woken or not. His birthday was one such occasion. It may not have been his real birthday, but he could argue that nobody could know for certain that theirs was their real birthday, either. One had to rely on the trustworthiness of their parents, if they had them around (and Lyric didn’t). Still, why not choose a day and keep it? Doing so worked well enough for him.  
Somehow, and perhaps by his own doing, his birthday became the mark of the start of a… festival, of sorts. It was hard to pin down what word it would fall under. If not “festival”, perhaps “the last chance to choose between the victory of some heaven or the shame of a hell swallowing you into defeat”. Lyric’s birthday marked the beginning of Prank Week, also known as the Prank Wars.

Lyric didn’t open his eyes as the clock struck midnight, but he heard it. He heard it, and he was prepared to listen for another sound any second. His birthday, and the week of pranks, had begun.  
With the quietest breath, he filled a small, pancake-shaped balloon. It was a classic prank, and the perfect kind to sabotage anyone who made an attempt to prank him. With a careful toss, the whoopee cushion could be sent flying like a frisbee to land beneath the less careful footstep of his would-be jokester.  
Any moment now he could expect an infiltrator, if anyone was brave enough to take him on. (Someone always was.)

The minutes ticked by after the stroke of midnight. No footsteps echoed through the halls, no nervous breathing gave away a new entrance. It wasn’t exactly silent, but nothing was out-of-the-ordinary in the soft chirps of sleeping rune dragons or the thumping of a dire wolf or jader going at an itch on their side.  
Lyric clutched the whoopee cushion in his hand. He could wait. He could wait more patiently than any of the others.

He slept very little, but sleep wasn’t as important as vigilance. He had a near-unbeatable pranking streak to keep.

When he felt the first light come in from the windows, it came as a surprise. Could it really be morning? It had been too quiet all night. Too quiet, or not quiet enough. It was almost like nothing had been going on, like a normal night had passed. That couldn’t be right. Had someone gotten sneaky enough to elude him? Perhaps this was a clever ploy to catch him off guard. If it was… well, he wouldn’t let himself be caught off guard.  
“Lyric!” A sudden voice managed to spite that thought. He could begrudgingly admit to himself that maybe they had caught him the tiniest bit by surprise.  
“Come on, get up, Lyr!”  
It was Tetra. That wasn’t much of a surprise. There were reasons that she led the Task Force, their big, gay, ever-growing family. Among those reasons were definitely her compassion, and her stubborn inability to give up on anyone who seemed like they needed someplace to bum out for a while. Most notably at the moment, she was brave. Brave enough to be the first to wake Lyric on his birthday.  
Lyric cautiously got up, propping himself up on an elbow and rolling from his stomach to a sitting position. He moved slowly. Even though he hadn’t heard anything in the night, one could never be too careful in looking for tripwires or triggers to elaborate Goldberg machines. The chance for mischief and engineering during Prank Week meant there should be no underestimating the Task Force and their creativity.  
Bonded creatures and companions grumbled at the movement, much less ready for wakefulness than Lyric was. He held onto his whoopee cushion in a hand hidden beneath the blanket. If it came down to it, it was his sword and shield all in one: A prank to prank the pranker.

Lyric couldn’t feel any traps springing to life as he sat up. His bonds didn’t tell him of any visible danger, either. If nothing had been set preemptively, that only left Tetra herself. Lyric waited tensely for her to make a move.  
“Hey man, you tired? You seem a bit on edge.” She paused. “And that’s no way to start out yourrrrr birthday!”  
Lyric was nearly ready to jump, expecting the worst. Instead, he heard a faint, crumbly clatter of… something on a plate?  
“Cookies! What’s a birthday without sweets?”  
So that was the gambit. A baked goods prank. Maybe she’d swapped out the sugar for salt? Not the most original of pranks, but the classics held their own merit.  
The best way to beat a prank in this style, he figured, was to refuse to be affected. He smiled, doing his best not to look sinister. Whether he succeeded, he couldn’t say. One couldn’t practice in front of a mirror if they couldn’t see the mirror. (Well, they could, but it wouldn’t do any good. He had tried before. He had been much younger then.)  
“Really?” he said, trying to sound innocent. He knew that Tetra didn’t buy it for a second, but neither did he buy that these cookies hadn’t been touched by the hand of a practical jokester. He took a cookie, gave it a sniff, and bit down. It had smelled like peanut butter, and tasted… exactly the same flavor. It was delicious. Nothing about it seemed to be any way other than it should. That might be worrisome. He didn’t break his expression, but worry crept in as he swallowed. Would Tetra have been willing to break out the laxatives this early?  
“Tetra,” he asked, keeping the concern out of his voice and faking confidence the way that only someone with the determination not to be pranked could have. “What kind of cookies are these?”  
“Are they alright?” she volleyed back. Not an answer.  
“They’re great,” he said, which wasn’t a lie. On the contrary, they definitely tasted good. “Are they… normal?”  
“Well, they’re technically peanut butter cookies,” she said, shrugging. “What’s a “normal” cookie, anyway? Is there some default cookie to rule them all?”  
Lyric raised an eyebrow. “Nothing funny?”  
“What do you mean? It’s your birthday, why would I-” she started, before cutting herself off. “Oh. Wait.”  
She gasped in faux-realization. That, Lyric thought, was beyond suspension of disbelief. Tetra, forgetting about Prank Week? Fat chance.  
“…yeah,” Lyric said.  
She rubbed the back of her head. “I mean, I had a cool idea involving some miniature trebuchets,” she offered.  
Lyric tilted his head up, inquiring.  
“Do you want to help me out with them? I’ve probably got the materials just about ready, but I’d need to tinker with the mechanical shit. I wouldn’t be able to take all of the credit with your help, but it would be worth it to have them ready before half of the Task Force is out.” She put her hand to her chin. “I’d definitely better have them ready before the end of the second day if I want them to get any decent use,” she mused.  
Lyric considered it. It was a trap, clearly. It had to be a trap. Something set to go off in his face as he helped to make it.  
Let it never be said that Lyric wasn’t up for a challenge.  
“Sounds like fun,” he agreed, stretching. Stretching “casually”, as he would describe it, though it was anything but. The calculated look of relaxation was key to keep others just a wee bit more on edge than oneself. Jackalopes were the true masters of that particular art, but Lyric hadn’t met a creature in Elde that he hadn’t learned something from.  
“Great! Get yourself some breakfast or something, and then we can get to work.”  
Lyric nodded.

The next hour was a lot of tiptoeing around, watching out (so to speak) for booby traps or buckets over doorways. A gentle nudge of the door before stepping through, or an exhale when walking from one room to the next to check for clear wrap… and yet he hadn’t found anything yet. It wasn’t all for nothing, though. He’d thought so before, and assured himself again: There was no way that Tetra, Queen of Mischief and all those who aided it, had forgotten about what was practically the national holy day of the Task Force. Not even a week without coffee would be enough to have her forget about that, and Lyric knew that she’d downed at least two pots of the stuff within the past 48 hours. If he was being honest, that estimate was far, far too generous in the amount of time it suggested she could have gone without for.  
Lyric swept that thought aside, focusing instead on the light scuffling coming from a few doors away into the alley. It sounded like hooves. Elkrin hooves? Maybe a very, very large runedeer, but he doubted that.  
The scuffling also held the sound of a small giggle, like a child’s. Specifically a child who had a penchant for holding on to bags full of jackalopes, and for tagging along with Tetra on sailing trips to marvel at the star maps.  
“Celia?” Lyric asked, smiling the faintest bit. Truth be told, Tetra adopting kids almost made Lyric feel like an uncle. Maybe not a good uncle, but he reasoned that there were far weirder uncles than he. There were probably weirder uncles even just within the rest of the Task Force.  
Celia went quiet, as though deciding whether she could stay hidden if she didn’t answer. A moment later she answered softly, with a small-sounding squeak to her voice.  
“Yeah?”  
“Whatcha up to?” he asked, taking a guarded step closer.  
(He didn’t trust that the children weren’t in on the pranks, either. The Task Force was ruthless when it came to the Prank War, and by now it was probably a rite of passage to participate.)  
She kept quiet for another second, but Lyric could hear hooves still moving. Small hooves, and the faint little sound of an elkrin.  
“Is that your mom’s fawn?” he asked.  
“…Which one?”  
Lyric grinned fully at that. She was a clever child, if perhaps a bit of a smartass.  
“The one who has an elkrin, Celia.”  
That got a chuckle in return. “Yeah,” she said slowly, as though sharing a secret. On second thought, she probably was sharing a secret. Not the best-kept secret, but a secret nonetheless.  
“What are you doing with Nascha’s fawn?” he asked, crouching down.  
“I was gonna dress them up,” she explained. She held something out, something that jingled as she did. Lyric put out his hand to feel.  
“A necklace?”  
“Yeah!” Celia smiled brightly. “It would look so pretty.”  
Lyric refrained from commenting that he’d have to take her word for it. The back of his neck suddenly prickled like he had been spotted. Not a pleasant feeling at the best of times, and very conspicuous now.  
“Would Nascha be okay with you putting a necklace on Avis?” he asked, pretending not to notice. He pretended pretty well, if he did say so himself.  
There was no way that Nascha didn’t know that he knew she was there.  
Lyric mentally braced himself for anything: A water balloon to come crashing down on his head, or a spitball fired at him with not-quite-deadly accuracy, or for Celia to turn around and shake his hand with a hand-buzzer. They weren’t particularly scary possibilities, if he was being honest. He could easily get away from any of them, so long as he could predict which to escape from.  
Nascha’s boots skidded quietly on the rooftop. Celia didn’t seem to notice. If she was acting, Lyric was very impressed by the confidence the child put forth.  
Nascha waited. Celia stool still, almost like she was weighing her words on her tongue like gold on a scale. She was too clever for her age. Most of them were, Lyric supposed. He had been no exception.  
“I don’t know. I didn’t ask,” she finally said. Lyric nodded.  
“Your moms are clever, Cel. As clever as you. Kudos on the practice in sneaking, but don’t go after the figurehead as soon as you’ve hit town.” He wondered whether the metaphor would be lost on her. It was often lost on him, since he had no qualms with doing exactly that. No use wasting time in town.  
“Do you think mom would be okay with it?” she asked.  
Lyric paused. The morally sound answer wasn’t his go-to. He could give it a shot, but it definitely wouldn’t be backed with much practice.  
“Is it hurting Avis?” he asked back, casting his head toward the fawn even though he couldn’t see them. Celia shook her head.  
“Is it hurting anyone else?” he continued. Celia shook her head again.  
“I think,” he said, “I think that the only thing she would have a problem with is that you didn’t ask first.” He cast his voice down to a whisper. “Better to ask forgiveness than permission, though. As long as you don’t do anything that keeps you from asking for forgiveness.”  
The child nodded. Lyric put his attention on the sounds from the rooftop Nascha had been standing at. It didn’t sound like anything in particular, now.  
Celestia smiled and laughed quietly, pleased to have gotten a secret back.  
He still didn’t trust that she wouldn’t soon be in the Prank War, but he had the feeling that this particular encounter was amongst the safer ones.  
“Why don’t you try to find your mom -- and I mean Nascha, because your other moms don’t have context -- so you can ask her about the dress-up?” he suggested. He had a hunch that he would find Nascha before Celia did, but that wasn’t the important thing. He wasn’t sure which thing was the important thing, really. Avis probably just wanted to run off.  
As soon as he thought it, he heard the fawn’s head whip around to the alley behind him. Well, he’d been partially right.  
Celia nodded, oblivious to Avis’s stare. “Thanks, Lyric!” she said, shouting it over her shoulder as she tried to run with her arms full of pygmy elkrin.

‘Odd role for you,’ Nascha took his hand and pressed the signs into it. ‘Feeling okay?’  
Lyric nodded noncommittally. “Yeah, all good here.” He wondered whether the elvian woman had anything up her own wing-like sleeves. She could be a difficult foe in the game of pranks if she wanted to, with plenty of practice in silence.  
‘Good. Happy Birthday,’ she signed. Lyric smiled, but his wariness wasn’t appeased. The lack of attack thus far seemed uncharacteristic.  
“Thanks. Is there anything funny going on that you know of?” he tried, not expecting much.  
‘Your face,’ she signed.  
Lyric pressed his hand to his temple and gave a dramatic sigh.  
“Should I take that in the standard poking fun way, or the “someone drew a dick on my forehead” way?”  
Nascha laughed, though no sound escaped as her shoulder shook. That wasn’t much of an answer.  
Well, there was no use in dwelling on it if he couldn’t get confirmation one way or another. As he started to walk away, Nascha stopped him.  
‘Did you miss that Celia had a necklace she shouldn’t have, or just didn’t find it worrisome?’ she signed.  
“Hey, I’m not above condoning a little petty thievery,” Lyric said. “I’m sure it would look very pretty on Avis.”  
Nascha sighed. ‘Fair.’  
Her already soft footsteps faded as she walked away. Lyric decided that the morning had been too relaxed. His guard wasn’t up high enough. If nothing had happened yet, he could only assume that it was the calm before the storm. It was time to step up his game.

He met with Tetra for her “belated” plans. At his arrival, he heard more than one set of hands at work.  
“Who else is helping?” he asked as he slipped in, quietly enough to startle what sounded like Matthias.  
Tetra’s voice sounded like it came with a smile. “Just Matthias and Sindri right now! Glad you could make it, take a seat,” she said. “I’ve got lots of flexible wood here for some catapults, too.”  
Lyric paused, incredulous.  
“You’ve got both Matthias and Sindri helping?” he asked. He had guessed correctly for Matthias and his telltale yelp as though a ghost had entered the room. Sindri had been quiet, offering few clues to his presence.  
“Yeah, why not?” Tetra asked.  
Why not? Those two were bound to have each other out of the contest within hours, if even that long. The mischief they could inspire was admirable, but nonetheless a danger for those aiming for the long game.  
“What? Alright, really, what’s going on?” Lyric asked, to anyone who would answer but no one in particular. His voice was as close to deadpan as he could keep it. He brushed his hand across the seat to clear away any practical joking tools that may have lain in wait before sitting down. He crossed his legs and leaned back.  
“Tetra, there’s no way that you forgot not only the start of Prank Week, but also that Sindri and Matthias are practically fated to sprung their mutual demise within the day. Hell, I’m shocked you’re both in the same room with no obvious funny business going on.”  
“To be fair,” Sindri offered, “setting up marshmallow trebuchets sort of is funny business.” His voice was small, but not fearful like it had used to be. That was an accomplishment better recognized some other day, when he didn’t have the heart of a cold-blooded killer pumping trouble through his veins. From the sound of it, Matthias only shrugged.  
“We’re off to a slow start, maybe,” Tetra said, “but we’ll get things in swing! At least this gives you a chance to relax for your birthday, yeah?”  
No, no it didn’t. Lyric refrained from laughing. He would much have preferred the thrill of acrobatically evading pitfalls and stink bombs over the tension of knowing that everyone was plotting, but not knowing when they’d strike.  
“The suspicious lack isn’t quite relaxing,” he shrugged. Had he put on something pink by mistake? It was so strange for it to be so late in the day, nearly noon, without even a tiny prank having shown up. Had everyone slept in? He couldn’t think of a single rational reason for everything to be so… rational.  
“I’m going to go check on something,” he said, uncrossing his legs and standing. “I’ll take some of this stuff with me to tinker with, if you want.”  
“Sure, if you want to! Let us know if you need anything, Lyr,” Tetra told him. “Don’t be shy!”  
‘I won’t be,’ he thought to himself.  
He needed to check in with his bonds. A little sight might offer some insight. If it didn’t, at least he could check to see whether a pink headband or phallic doodle had slipped past his defenses and paranoia.

Vasco confirmed that nothing directly related to Lyric’s person was amiss. There wasn’t any pink marking him as “out-of-bounds”, not even down to his socks. There was no marker-made makeup. His outfit wasn’t even mismatched.  
“Well,” he said under his breath, “This doesn’t clear much up. Maybe it’s best to keep you around for now, though. Think you’ll be alright on the front lines?”  
Vasco bobbed his head, doing his best bird nod. Lyric would usually keep his blood-bond at a distance, safe from the crossfire, but desperate times called for desperate measures. No amount of false alarms could guarantee that a real situation wouldn’t arise. He’d be ready when it did.  
He busied his hands with assembling he had grabbed the parts for. Vasco assured that the parts themselves were in order, without anything clinging on like soldiers to the Trojan horse.

-

The construction was coming along well back in the crafting room. Trebuchets and catapults sat, some of them finished and many not, in a haphazard line across the tables. Sketched out blueprints scattered the room, as well. Matthias tugged at a torn edge of one and rolled the corner of paper into a wad.  
“Hey, no spitballs!” Tetra poked. Matthias dropped the crumbled paper.  
“Don’t break the truce yet, guys. We’ve got to keep it up until everything’s ready. You’re doing great so far,” she said, grabbing the handle of her fourth cup of coffee. She’d been pacing herself.  
“I know, sorry,” Matthias said, rubbing the back of his neck.  
“No worries, bud. Just hold out. We can do this.” She smiled. “Can you imagine the look on his face?”  
Sindri nodded. “It’s a big plan.” He paused, chewing on a pencil. “Do you think it’ll work?”  
Matthias grinned, his wolfish ears twisting in a positively puppy-like manner. “It’s got a better set of odds than anyone going after him alone.”

-

The trebuchet seemed well-planned and well-calibrated. It was small and compact, but Lyric guessed its range could still hit a target all the way across a large room. It could possibly even hit someone out on the street from within an alley, if one was careful.  
The thought was interrupted by a knock on the door. Who could it be now? Was a knock a good sign at this point, or a bad one? If someone wanted to take a shot at him, they could have snuck in, or at least tried to sneak in. That would give away their intent if they were caught, though. Maybe the knock was an attempt to retain the element of surprise. That made sense in a roundabout way, right?  
Paranoid conspiracy didn’t offer much in the way of solid answers.  
Lyric stood up and cracked open the door, ready to deflect an attack. Some sort of attack would be welcome, at this point. If nothing else, it would kick things off and validate his careful tiptoeing around.  
Luna stood on the other side, smiling in what Vasco told him looked like a friendly manner.  
“Hi, Lyr,” she said, holding her ground as he opened the door a bit wider. She wasn’t wearing any pink, but neither did she seem like she was readying anything to throw, literally or not.  
“Hey,” he answered cautiously. The way he said it made it sound almost like a question rather than a greeting, but maybe that was the most honest. Honesty was also not his most practiced venue.  
“I wanted to make sure you got the memo to come to your own birthday dinner. I don’t doubt that you might try to skip out otherwise,” she joked. “Everyone’s looking forward to wishing you a happy birthday. I don’t know whether a decision has been made over whether to set up a birthday spanking machine, but there might be that to look forward to or dread.” Her smile wasn’t quite vindictive, but it might have been something adjacent. Something like a friendly vendetta, maybe. Lyric supposed he had probably done something to deserve it at some point or another.  
“…Alright,” he said. Vasco bobbed his head to add his own agreement. The crow probably just wanted whatever tasty treats might be brought out for the occasion.  
Lyric, however, was well aware that this would be the perfect opportunity for the Prank War to really go off. A spoonful of soup flung at someone, and the ensuing food fight could take out dozens.  
“Don’t be a square,” Luna warned, though her voice was light. She stepped back, letting Lyric close the door.  
Maybe he’d finally see some pranking action. By now, he thought, that would be the best present he could get.  
Would a spanking machine count as a practical joke? He might need to talk to whoever counted as the judge about that. Come to think of it, though… the judge might be Grace, since the doctor was one of the few to consistently sit out. Maybe he wouldn’t talk to the judge…

Vasco helped him to choose lightweight clothing, nothing but dark colors and nothing that would be a hindrance by getting caught on his surroundings. It also made him look like a ninja. That wasn’t the point, but he figured that it was, as an added bonus, just gravy.  
He took a few steps, testing that everything was balanced. It seemed so, but he had the nagging feeling that something was missing.  
If his careful defenses hadn’t brought in any results, maybe an emergency offense was in order. His shield-of-choice from that morning ought to do the trick. Nothing could beat the ease-of-use nor classic hilarity of a whoopee cushion. He would definitely bring it along.

He arrived to the dinner hall before most. If he was expected to show up, he’d make sure he had the advantage of watching everyone else come in. Vasco perched on his shoulder to keep lookout. The crow could serve as his eyes, while Lyric could listen sharply on his own.  
The Task Force came in as a slow and steady trickle. Asena showed up early, taking a seat not too far away after wishing him a happy birthday in probably the most genuine voice possible from anyone in the force. Even the literal children would have to really try if they wanted to top her sincerity.  
As luck would have it, Grace was next to show up. Her hair was held up in a pink bandana, signifying the ever-important message of “don’t hit the healer, you ancients-damned fools”. Getting hurt wasn’t traditionally part of the Prank Week experience, but it wasn’t exactly uncommon. Banana peels could, as it turned out, occasionally pose a genuine hazard. The Task Force was known for many things, both good and bad. Adherence to safety protocol wasn’t on that list of things.  
“Happy birthday, Lyric.”  
Of course she would sit down right across from him. Of course.  
“Thanks,” he said, avoiding eye contact. (Not that he’d have much success maintaining eye contact if he had wanted to.)  
“You don’t seem too much worse for the wear,” she commented, her low and serious voice tinted with a tone of surprise. “Then again,” she added under her breath, “You don’t tend to have a high standard of health to compare with.”  
“Mm,” he hummed in response. Not talking to the judge didn’t seem to have worked. “It’s strange, but nobody seems to have realized that the Week has started,” he admitted, leaning back if only for the illusion of jackalopes-like calm.  
“Thank the Ancient of good sense and reason, if one exists,” Grace responded, vaguely pleased.  
Lyric tilted his head. “Are they planning anything?”  
Grace held up her hands. “Whatever you all do with this holiday, it’s not on my hands. I haven’t kept up on it one way or the other.”  
Lyric grinned with the smallest helping of relief. At least he could count of Grace being uninvolved.  
…Not that he wasn’t plenty happy to keep her on the other side of the table. He would very much like to continue dodging check-ups for as long as he could manage.  
Icarus slid into the chair beside Lyric, mechanical wings folded as small as he could get them. “As small as he could get them” was still very blocky and inconvenient, but more similar to a large backpack than the 12-foot wooden-and-leather contraption of dubious success that they were.  
He grinned to Lyric. “Happy birthday, man! Doing alright?”  
Lyric smirked, letting a bit of humor show. “I’m fine. Nothing to validate my suspicion yet, but I’m holding up.”  
Icarus laughed right back. “Maybe the real prank is the friend we made along the way?” he offered.  
“That would… imply that you’re all jokes,” Lyric pointed out. Grace kicked him under the table. “Ow! Point taken, sorry,” he amended with a grudging glare.

The hall filled in more and more. Tetra took the seat directly to Lyric’s right. Nascha and Luna sat side-by-side across from her, closer to Grace than many of the Task Force would dare to be.  
Vasco told Lyric that, with the exception of Grace, he couldn’t see a scrap of pink on anyone in the room. Lyric’s heart skipped a beat. Whatever was going on, everyone was in on it.  
He focused his attention to Vasco. ‘Hey,’ he thought to him, pulling on their shared blood-bond. ‘Think you can get me an aerial view?’  
Vasco dipped his whole body in an enthusiastic yes and spread his wings to take to the rafters. As soon as he had gotten higher than everyone’s heads, Tetra stood.  
“Alright alright! Looks like we’ve got just about everyone here,” she shouted for the room to hear. “Food is on the tables around the edge of the room. Birthday treat, dessert’s going first! Go ahead and get a plate,” she finished with a wide smile. Chairs scratched the floor as nearly everyone stood up at once. Lyric stayed seated, waiting for a sign from Vasco or for the crowd to thin.  
Vasco landed on a rafter near the center of the room and looked around. Lyric’s stomach dropped.  
Each plate had a miniature pie placed atop it, the perfect size to finish alone. The perfect size to throw.  
His paranoia hadn’t paid out yet, but this would be incredibly difficult to ignore. Even more difficult to miss was the way Tetra grinned, elbows on the table as everyone else moved to get their plate.  
“Happy birthday, Lyr,” she said. Nascha handed her a plate, and the crowd formed a ring around Lyric.  
At least it wasn’t a spanking machine.

Lyric pushed his chair out with a swift movement, moving to a defensive stance. He reached for a pocket in his ninja-like outfit. A smoke bomb would be pretty close to the coolest way to evade now that the pranking had finally started. He tossed it down and prepared to leap and duck away…  
And it made a noise like a deflating balloon or an upset stomach.  
Right. The whoopee cushion.  
Lyric took a step to run, hoping the surprise might still work in his favor. Someone kicked the whoopee cushion away. ’Good riddance,’ he thought. It hadn’t helped much, anyway.  
He turned and leapt over his chair, ducked beneath arms holding up pies, and slid past the prank-seeking horde. He weaved between people, through legs and away from hands trying to catch and hold him. Vasco chimed in, telling him that there was an opening to Lyric’s left leading away from the brunt of the group. Lyric nodded and took it, dodging that way.  
His foot came down on something as he did.  
He regretted bringing the whoopee cushion.  
Under the full weight of his footstep, it let rip at the loudest volume it was capable of. Despite the crowded room, everything went quiet for that moment, allowing the sound to ring out in its full glory: the iconic sound of a very wet fart.  
The entire room froze for all of a second to appreciate what had happened. Then the second ended, and all hell broke loose.

**Author's Note:**

> If you poke me about it I might remember to write an epilogue paragraph  
> I love the Task Force, so much!! I hope that the approximately three people I expect to read this enjoy it! I enjoyed writing and re-reading it. ^^


End file.
